NF Blog Post

        In this article Long-term Study Complicates Understanding of Child Abuse the author wants you to know the causes of child abuse and how some are wildly misconstrued. He wants you to realize that a lot of people even officials look for the wrong things to profile a child abuser.
         The way he gets you to think what he wants you to is he gives you a common thought. The thought that people who were abused as kid are more apt to abuse their kids. He then goes into statistics on a study of midwestern families and he gives statistics that further back up the fact that is is believed that people that were abused are more likely to abuse their kids. Finally however he brings up the fact that over all it is almost exactly 50-50 people who were abused and were not.
          In my opinion it is not surprising that people who were abused are not the most common abusers. I think they may have been so sad as a kid that they would never want to put their own child through that because they can understand how it feels to be abused in that way. However they may feel that they are carrying on a tradition or if the got abused why shouldn't their kids. I also think the fact that they are doing studies about this is great because it can rase awareness about this issue.

Hamlet

        I have just started reading Hamlet. I have been doing a lot with Shakespeare recently and I wanted to do more. I am not far into it so I have not been able to tell much. I am however very interested to see how the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio develops.
        I have not read much but I can see Horatio developing as a very reasonable character. In this way he can counter Hamlets impulsiveness.  You see this come out in the first scene where Hamlet sees his dad's ghost. As the story develops I think the purpose Horatio will serve is to in a way check Hamlet. When there are choices that need to be made, I think Hamlet will rush into them and Horatio will be there to pull him back. Horatio will in a way serve as a form of a conscience to Hamlet. He may oppose him to a point where they fight. It could go to far and they could end up as enemies or Hamlet could snap and get mad at Horatio. He could end up as the main antagonist of the story. He could also just be similar to an adviser to Hamlet. When Hamlet's father's ghost appears and tells him to follow Hamlet, without hesitation follows despite Horatio's protests. This shows that Hamlet may be a very impulsive character that doesn't think things through.
        In conclusion I predict Horatio will counter Hamlet in some way, whether it be good or bad.

     

revised post

        I started a trilogy by Don Robertson a little while ago. The series follows a young boy named Morris Bird III. In the first book The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread he is in elementary school and goes on a adventure to find his best friend. In The Sum and Total of Now he is in middle school and must deal with adolescents and maturing. In The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened , the last of the trilogy he is in highschool and getting ready to go to college. Over the course of the series Morris has dealt with a lot of death. The main part of each book so far has had to do with a death. In the first book he deals with his best friends death. In the second it has to do with his grandmas death. And here in the final book he deals with his own pending death. Don includes all this death to show Morris' truest self.
        Don Robertson makes each book centered around death to bring out the characters truest self in a realistic way. When Stanley, Morris' best friend,  dies you see Morris stop being a kid. When he is traveling to see his friend he is still very innocent, but when Stanley dies you see a change. He stops looking to be helped and starts taking things into his own hands. There are many other people that were hurt from the explosion. He is just in elementary school but he steps up and helps people that are hurt. By doing this he helps you see the change in the character. A death always poses an opportunity for a major character change to to reveal something about a character.
        In the second book Don kills Morris' grandma to illustrate that as much as Morris tries to push his family away he still needs them. When Morris' grandma gets sick Morris takes a real blow. Then on top of it all Morris' family just bickers and fights over his dying grandma's possessions. Nobody cares about his grandma, but she was someone that meant a ton to Morris and he feels like everyone is just pushing him and his grandma aside. This brings out the side of him that is still very kid-like and that he still needs his family to be there for him. But again Don brings out the different sides of Morris, he shows Morris still has strength by having him burn all his grandma's stuff. This illustrates The many aspects of people, again death brings this out.
        In the third book Don forces Morris to deal with his own pending death to bring out his most vulnerable side and to show also how strong he is. Morris shows his true colors at this point. Morris seems to be weak and strong in different ways. Each death brings out new ones. The ones that his own death brings out are the fact that he can crack sometimes even though he puts everything on himself. It also show who he care about most and who he puts ahead of himself. He puts his sister and his girlfriend ahead of him and that shows strength and compassion for his family even after his mothers death. His father pushes him away and that makes him more distant but before his death his feeling comes back. This again shows Morris' truest self.    
        Don choses who and when he kills people to illustrate all the sides of Morris. Each death has its own significance to the arc of the story and to Morris.